The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently announced a public meeting to discuss the agency's Nutrition Innovation Strategy. The meeting will be held on July 26 in Washington, D.C., and will be available via live webcast.

In a recent statement, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., emphasized that the public meeting will begin an important dialogue on various aspects of the strategy with a variety of stakeholders. In his March 29 speech to the National Food Policy Conference, the Commissioner recognized the critical role the FDA plays in protecting public health through improvements to the nutritional profile of foods that compose the American diet. He stated that developing strategies to improve nutrition can be a transformative step toward reducing the burden of many chronic diseases, ranging from diabetes to certain cancers to heart disease. As such, the FDA is hosting a public meeting to give interested parties an opportunity to discuss various features of the FDA's Nutrition Innovation Strategy, which promotes public health through efforts to empower consumers to make better and more informed decisions about their diets and health, foster the development of healthier food options, and expand the opportunities to use nutrition to reduce morbidity and mortality due to chronic disease.

Since announcing the Strategy earlier this year, the FDA has identified several areas where it believes there are opportunities to improve FDA's approach to nutrition policy, by encouraging industry innovation to improve the nutrition and healthfulness of food and by providing consumers with informative food labeling to make healthy food choices. These tactics include developing a standard icon or symbol for the claim "healthy;" a more efficient review strategy for the FDA to employ when evaluating qualified health claims; allowing for labeling statements or claims on food products that could facilitate innovation to promote healthful eating patterns; approaches for modernizing standards of identity; possible changes that could make ingredient information more consumer friendly; and implementing the FDA's educational campaign for consumers about the updated Nutrition Facts Label that consumers will be seeing in the marketplace.

The meeting will be held on July 26 from 8:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. at the Hilton Washington DC/Rockville Hotel, 1750 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852 and include introductory presentations, panels, oral presentations by participants as well as breakout sessions. Public meeting attendees are encouraged to register online to attend the meeting in person and via live webcast.

For questions about registering for the meeting or to register by phone, contact Melissa Schroeder, SIDEM, 1775 Eye Street, NW, Suite 1150, Washington, DC 20006, 240-393-4496, EventSupport@Sidemgroup.com. Advanced registration is available until July 19 and is strongly recommended because seating is limited.

For general questions about the meeting or to request special accommodations due to a disability, contact Juanita Yates, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (HFS-009), Food and Drug Administration, 5001 Campus Dr., College Park, MD 20740, phone: 240-402-1731, email: Juanita.Yates@fda.hhs.gov.

For more information about the meeting, as well as instructions on registration and requesting to make an oral presentation, see the official Notice of the Meeting.

Important Dates to Remember:
• Advanced Registration Closing Date July 19, 2018
• Request special accommodations due to disability July 12, 2018
• Request to make an oral presentation July 12, 2018
• Public Meeting July 26, 2018, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Deadline to submit written/electronic comments August 27, 2018